HS02 - Days of Atonement

by Michael Gregorio

  Biswanger turned, a tight-lipped expression on his face.

  ‘One moment, I pray you, sirs,’ he called. ‘If we can just settle the pose, this gentleman can get on with his job while I attend to you.’

  Lavedrine and I exchanged a glance as Biswanger turned away.

  ‘Does it suit you now, Herr Rauch?’ Biswanger called out in a loud voice.

  Herr Rauch pulled back the black cloth that covered his head and looked up. He bobbed to us by way of welcome, then turned to Biswanger. ‘Have a look for yourself, sir,’ he invited. ‘It will do, I think.’

  The young man was tall and thin, with wild, uncombed hair, and spots of paint on his trousers and shoes. Christian Rauch was well known in town as a painter of portraits. He pulled his black cloth further back as he stood up to his full height, revealing a large wooden box which stood on a wooden frame. A camera obscura, fitted up with an adjustable brass lens for focusing; the sort of thing that artists use when preparing a canvas.

  Biswanger cleared his throat, then lowered himself to the height of the ground-glass viewing plate. ‘Cover me up,’ he said, and the artist immediately threw the black cloth over the apparatus and the head and shoulders of the undertaker, whose large backside reared up ludicrously in white duck trousers as he manoeuvred himself into a position to see.

  The lens was pointing at the seated lady.

  Sounds of a huffing, indeterminate nature came from beneath the cloth. A moment later, Biswanger came thrusting out from beneath the black cloth, as if desperate for air.

  ‘Something’s not quite right,’ he murmured.

  He stood back from the viewing-box, clasped his chin in his hand, and looked intently at the figure of the old lady sitting quietly in the chair.

  Her cheeks were chubby, the skin was dewlapped and sagging along the line of her jaw. A dimpled chin, a large nose, and two button-bright black eyes completed the picture.

  What was missing, I wondered, in Biswanger’s opinion?

  The woman was sitting bolt upright, her billowing sleeves resting along the broad arms of the chair, her hands curved over the two turned balls of wood that formed the spindle-ends. She was dressed in a gown of ribbed brown velvet elaborately embroidered with silver thread. A matching bonnet and an old-fashioned ruff completed her ensemble. Large pearls dangled from her ears, the lobes of which were just visible.

  Biswanger let out a suppressed cry.

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ he said, and left the room, running in his eagerness.

  In the mean time, Herr Rauch stepped up to his easel, which stood beside the camera obscura, and began nonchalantly to trace the general outline of the sitter onto his canvas with a large brush dipped in dark paint.

  Lavedrine walked across and examined the wooden box.

  ‘Do you mind, Herr Rauch?’ he asked.

  ‘Be my guest,’ the artist replied. ‘You don’t need the cloth for an approximate view. But use it, if you wish.’

  As Lavedrine bent to look through the viewing-screen, observing that it had a reversing prism, and showed the picture the right way up, Biswanger came running back into the room. He went directly to the lady, and propped a foot-long ebony crucifix with an outstretched ivory figure of Christ squarely in the middle of her chest.

  ‘There!’ he said. ‘What do you think now, Herr Rauch?’

  The old woman did not protest at this rough handling, being dead.

  The artist glanced across, then looked back to his canvas. ‘If you really think so,’ he conceded. ‘I prefer the natural unadorned look, as you know. But fashion nowadays is for overt religious symbols. There’s no denying fashion.’

  I had, of course, seen post mortem portraits before—they were a common sight in any well-heeled Prussian household—but I had never seen one being limned, and had sometimes asked myself how it was done. Evidently, it was just another one of the many services that Biswanger offered.

  ‘How did you get her to sit up so naturally?’ I asked.

  ‘A dead body may do anything that a living one can, Herr Procurator,’ he replied uneasily, humouring me. ‘With obvious differences. The state of rigor mortis helps. Having evacuated the contents from the stomach, which is done by tilting, allowing all the fluids to drain out of the mouth and into a bucket, the limbs may be moved about and positioned much as you please. An occasional crack of the bones does not disturb the sitter. The face can be washed and cleaned, touches of art and colour added to the cheeks and lips. Herr Rauch will make a reasonable likeness in an hour or two.’

  ‘You are a man of many parts, sir. I admire you for it,’ Lavedrine said carelessly.

  Leon Biswanger coloured at this compliment, but he did not look happy. He was learning to fear the Frenchman’s irony, and did not dare to ask why we had come.

  ‘I discovered a part the other day that I would never have guessed,’ Lavedrine continued, smiling brightly at me. He had learnt from his cat how to play with a mouse and frighten it, I supposed.

  ‘Which part would that be?’ Biswanger asked with a tremor.

  Lavedrine walked to a beadwork chair which stood in the centre of the room. A tapestry of pink roses had been embroidered on the seat. He bent forward and stroked the material with his hand, admiring the quality of the work. Then he sat down, stretched out his legs, and watched the artist at work.

  ‘Have you ever been to Königsberg, Biswanger?’ he asked after some moments. ‘A pretty town, though freezing cold. We have set up our Eastern operational headquarters there. Under Maréchal Lannes. You’ve heard of him, I think.’

  Lavedrine did not wait for an answer. He plunged ahead, never taking his sharp eyes off the undertaker. ‘I was there myself the other day, looking for information. There is a great deal of it to be found in Königsberg. But I expect a man like you knows where to find information. Isn’t that true?’

  Biswanger seemed to sway.

  ‘I’m not sure what you are getting at, sir,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Are you not?’ Lavedrine observed, like one of those snakes found in India that freeze in deathly immobility before they strike.

  ‘No, sir, I am not.’

  ‘Let me ask you another question, then. Do you ever wake up in the morning and think to yourself, Heigh-ho, today I shall write a letter?’

  ‘Well, sir . . .’ A look of fright crept over Biswanger’s face. ‘Sometimes, I suppose . . .’

  ‘To whom do you write, when the urge comes over you?’

  Biswanger did not reply. Nor did Lavedrine go on. He stretched out his boots comfortably in front of him, as if he found that easy-chair exactly to his liking. He might have been sitting at home in front of his own fire in the company of that cat of his.

  ‘I know my way around, sir,’ Biswanger blurted out. ‘I know where all the different offices are, and who does what in them. And I can write, sir. A lot of people can’t. Sometimes they ask me to pen a letter for them.’

  ‘Ask?’ I butted in, unable to restrain myself. ‘As a favour, Biswanger?’

  ‘Now, now, Herr Procurator,’ Lavedrine warned me playfully, ‘our friend here offers services. If there were no takers, he’d strike those services off his list. I think I am right in saying that. If you need to bury a bellringer, or make a portrait of your departed aunt, Herr Biswanger will oblige. But let’s talk about these letters. Imagine that I wanted to purchase a castle in, say, Thuringia. Who would I need to get in touch with?’

  Biswanger smiled involuntarily as his practical mind turned like a spotlight on the question. ‘Well, sir, you’d need . . .’

  ‘Castles do not interest me, Biswanger,’ Lavedrine interrupted him. ‘Nor do they interest you. You wrote to the Castle of Königsberg for another reason altogether. Would you care to tell us what it was that you wrote to enquire about?’

  ‘I really ought to be seeing how Herr Rauch is getting on,’ Biswanger replied, casting a desperate glance in the direction of the artist.

  ‘All in good time,’ Lavedrine re
plied. ‘The lady will wait. Königsberg Castle? A letter posted late last August? You don’t need to worry, I have already seen it. But I am certain that my friend, Procurator Stiffeniis, would love to hear from your own lips the range and infinite variety of your . . . usefulness.’

  I played my part, of course.

  ‘Herr Biswanger,’ I said, ‘why did you, a Prussian, write a letter to the French?’

  Biswanger was sweating, despite the cold in the room. ‘I wrote to the office of Maréchal Lannes to ask about the Napoleonic Codes. We’ve been under military jurisdiction for over a year now, sir. I wrote to enquire when the Codes would be applied here in Prussia.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lavedrine said with relish. ‘When will Prussian citizens be given the rights that every Frenchman now considers to be his birthright. And what news were you able to obtain?’

  Biswanger appeared to relax. ‘Implementation is imminent. A question of weeks, rather than months,’ he reported. ‘Paris has approved. Our king had signed the plea. The emperor intends to ratify the request.’

  ‘In a word, French law will reign supreme in Prussia,’ Lavedrine concluded.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Biswanger agreed.

  Lavedrine pulled out his pocket knife and began to clean the dirt from beneath his fingernails. He looked at me, not Biswanger. ‘You are going to be busy, Stiffeniis. All these new procedures to read. New laws to be applied. New rights for men who had none before. Hard times for magistrates,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that correct, Herr Biswanger?’

  ‘I suppose it is, sir.’

  ‘And better times for Jews, of course. Aaron Jacob, for example,’ Lavedrine prompted, still busy with his knife and his nails.

  ‘Aaron will certainly benefit from the new laws,’ Biswanger continued. ‘As will all Jews registered in Prussia. They’ll be able to go to school, or study at the university, if they wish. They’ll be free to practise their religion openly, declare property, buy and sell without deceit. Of course, they’ll have to pay taxes, but they paid taxes before . . .’

  ‘They were taxed as cows, or sheep,’ Lavedrine said sharply. ‘Now they will be taxed as men.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Biswanger.

  ‘The end of your business relations,’ I said. ‘If Aaron Jacob can sign a contract in the presence of lawyer Wittelsbach, what need will he have of you?’

  Biswanger looked at me and smiled.

  ‘Business is a shifting sand, Herr Procurator. One opportunity closes down, a hundred others open up. I see the future brightly. A man has every right to know how he stands when the law is changed.’

  ‘True, true,’ Lavedrine cooed, like a dove in its nest. ‘Especially a Jew,’ he went on more earnestly. ‘Aaron Jacob, I mean.’

  I thought of Judenstrasse, of the people living there, of the Lotingers who had learnt to hate them all of a sudden, as events relating to the massacre of the Gottewald children had thrown a bad light on the Jews.

  ‘Let’s hope that life will be better for them, not worse,’ I said, having little faith in any change that French justice might bring to Prussia.

  Biswanger looked from Lavedrine to me, then back again.

  ‘Amen,’ he said in pious confusion.

  ‘Why did Aaron ask you to write that letter for him?’ Lavedrine insisted. ‘He is a scholar. He could have written it himself, but he did not. Why not, Herr Biswanger?’

  Biswanger frowned, his eyes darting from one to the other.

  ‘I did not write that letter on behalf of Aaron, sir,’ he protested. ‘Someone else paid me to write it.’

  ‘Who paid you?’

  ‘It was Major Gottewald, sir,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Bruno Gottewald?’ I echoed.

  ‘That’s right, sir. I wrote that letter to Königsberg on his instructions. I told you that I’d met him twice. The second time, he commissioned me to make enquiries of the French authorities.’

  ‘Asking when the Napoleonic Codes would be implemented in Prussia?’

  ‘That’s right, Herr Procurator.’

  ‘Why did he want to know?’

  Biswanger shrugged. ‘I have no idea, sir.’

  So, in chronological order, I summed up to myself, Gottewald requested information about the Napoleonic Codes, then things precipitated. He ‘accidentally’ died, his children were ‘unfortunately’ massacred, and his wife ‘mysteriously’ disappeared.

  ‘Did he tell you why his name was not to appear?’ I asked.

  ‘He did not want to be identified. Not by them . . . the French, I mean,’ he said apologetically, glancing at Lavedrine. ‘Nor by our lot, I suppose. It is not a good idea for a Prussian soldier to embrace the rule of France so openly.’

  ‘Is that what he said, or is it your interpretation?’ I pounced.

  ‘He told me so himself, sir. When I realised how careful he was being . . .’

  ‘You doubled your fee,’ concluded Lavedrine.

  ‘That’s exactly what I did, sir,’ Biswanger remarked, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘It was a matter of the most extreme delicacy.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Lavedrine agreed with a smile. ‘Tell me, did you have any inkling of why he wished to know? Or what he would do if the news turned out as he was hoping?’

  Biswanger scratched his head.

  ‘I never thought about it, sir. I sent that letter off to Königsberg, and when the reply came four or five weeks later, I didn’t open it, just forwarded it on to Kamenetz.’

  I turned to Lavedrine. ‘Kamenetz again,’ I murmured.

  Suddenly, I recalled something Doctor Korna had told me. The surgeon had written to the Chancellor, Baron von Stein, to report on the atrocities taking place inside Kamenetz fortress.

  The risks I had to run to get that message out. . . .

  ‘How did you get that letter into Kamenetz?’ I asked Biswanger. ‘How could Gottewald be sure to lay his hands on it?’

  Now that we were down to practicalities, the undertaker smiled. ‘Why, Herr Procurator, that was a lark! I addressed it to the inn in Kamenetz village in my own name. All Gottewald had to do was walk in and ask for it, as if he were me. Worked a treat, it did.’

  ‘Thank you, Biswanger,’ Lavedrine declared, jumping to his feet.

  ‘Let’s hope you have told us everything this time,’ I added, pausing by the door.

  ‘Incredible, don’t you agree?’ Lavedrine enthused as we walked away from the house.

  ‘What is incredible?’

  ‘That man’s capacity for business. He’ll do anything at a price—handle dead bodies, have them limned, rent Jewish houses, write letters for Prussian officers. It’s all the same to him. That man is a genius!’

  I walked at his side in silence.

  ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘you don’t approve.’

  ‘It hardly matters what I think of him,’ I grumbled. ‘He is an emblem of what Prussia will become.’

  ‘Thanks to us? Is that what you are thinking?’ He shook his head. ‘You should be grateful. You were disappointed when I failed to bring you proof that Gottewald had sold his soul to France. Biswanger has breathed fresh life into your fading hopes.’

  I stopped short, and stared at him.

  Was it conceivable that a man who had won honours and been promoted, a national hero, might become the target of Prussian nationalists because he requested information from the French? Could that error of judgement explain everything?

  ‘Do you really believe that letter explains the destruction of Gottewald’s family, the mutilation of his sons?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘This news confirms what you have always believed.’

  We walked in silence over the wooden bridge, the wind whistling and gusting over the dark, icy waters of the River Nogat.

  As he went along the quay, he turned to me.

  ‘Something has been puzzling me all afternoon,’ he said. ‘I told you earlier that I had been to Königsberg, and seen statistics compiled by Kant relating to the
suspicious deaths of children. You have not asked me a single question! You have spoken of anything and everything else. Are you not curious, Stiffeniis? You were not so reserved at Dittersdorf’s feast.’

  I remembered the claims he had made that night.

  ‘Professor Kant was involved in criminal studies,’ he prattled on, ‘long before events took you to Königsberg. You denied it, but I was right. He was interested in crime forty years before those murders. Why are you so secretive, Stiffeniis? Why say nothing then? And why are you so silent now?’

  My head was spinning. A kaleidoscope of images flashed through my mind. Königsberg. Immanuel Kant. Dead bodies on the empty streets. I had almost drowned in the turgid sludge of that foul nightmare. Now Lavedrine was dredging it up again.

  ‘A child was murdered many years ago in Königsberg,’ he said, veering unexpectedly in a new direction.

  ‘Many children, according to your statistics.’ I shrugged.

  ‘According to Professor Kant,’ he insisted. ‘He must have taken a very special interest in that case if he went to the trouble of compiling statistics to explain it. I looked for more, but all I found were those figures and the judge’s sentence.’

  His voice was raised against the wind, which drove in off the sea, howling about our ears. But he roared louder in his passion, more interested in Immanuel Kant than any other man that I had ever met.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I said, aware of the fretful anger in my voice.

  ‘What fascinated him about the murder of that child?’ He rounded on me. ‘That is what intrigues me, Stiffeniis. Kant must have made notes regarding the case. We cannot ignore what he may have discovered. I ought to have looked more carefully. But I have decided. I want to go to Königsberg again and find them,’ he said fiercely. ‘And next time, we will go there together.’

  As we turned into Nogatsstrasse, the wind eased abruptly. But my thoughts were blown and buffeted about like autumn leaves.

  ‘There’s another thing, too,’ he went on, his drive and energy overwhelming.